If I were to expand on any of the four essays, I would most likely choose the one I wrote on social media. While having the argument that all people on the Internet, regardless of the distance between you or how often you talk, have the potential to become ones friend, I would probably expand more on the actual analysis of friendships online. For example, there is a show on MTV called Catfish that tries to unite people who are in long distance relationships. A lot of the time, though, one of the two people ends up being fake. I have yet to see an episode of this where the relationship actually goes as planned, with both people being who they said they were.
In my essay, I had also touched on how having a bunch of online friends that you don't talk to at all would be considered "pathetic". I would probably cut that part out and everything that has to do with that, because it would have nothing to do with my analysis for online friendships.
Key Terms:
-Facebook friends
-Internet vs. face-to-face
-Catfish (TV show)
-online relationships
-Gaming friends
Good. Catfish obviously exposes the purposeful deceit of online identity and relationships, but I think you should also explore the non-deceitful construction of online identity as well. For example, let's say a user creates a playful screenname (thecallofthewild, for example) and uses a non-personal photo for the profile pic (say, Minnie Mouse). What assumptions will be made about this "real person"? Why? do we treat users online differently if we believe that he/she is a female/ male/ young/ old/ professional/ etc.? Why, even if we know that the clues that are given about the identity may not be "real"? Are the relationships that this person develops online less real because his/her real name, gender, likeness, etc., is not used? I would explore a blog that attracts the same users frequently (or an online game) and see how they treat each other.
ReplyDelete